Energy Infrastructure Clears the Way for Coyotes in Alberta's Oil Sands

Energy extraction and development are fragmenting the landscape in Canada's oil sands region, creating patches of boreal forest connected by millions of kilometers of cleared linear features. The impacts of oil and gas disturbance on some wildlife species, like caribou and wolves, have been a topic of much research; yet, the influence of energy development on other species, like coyotes-which have recently expanded into the boreal forest and established strong populations-is not well understood. Here, we assessed the effects of linear features on coyote distribution and interspecific interactions by deploying camera traps across multiple landscapes of varying energy disturbance intensities. Using an information theoretic approach, we tested hypotheses about the effects of linear feature type and density, natural feature coverage, and prey and competitor relative abundances on coyote monthly occurrence. High densities of wide linear features and high relative abundances of small mammal prey and large competitors best predicted coyote occurrence, whereas natural features had a negative effect. Selection for higher densities of these features suggests that wide linear clearings, like roads and geo-survey seismic lines, provide movement paths for coyotes as they do for wolves, although they may also provide prey subsidies. Snowshoe hare and red squirrel prey, but not ungulates, had a strong positive effect on coyote occurrence, although coyote-prey relationships could shift with the hare cycle. Coyotes appeared to co-occur with wolf and lynx competitors, perhaps through shared use of abundant resources and temporal segregation or mediated by large coyote populations-and potentially indicating a departure from top-down coyote suppression by dominant heterospecifics. Energy development has fundamentally reshaped the boreal forest of Canada's oil sands region, giving way to landscapes that support generalist, range-expanding species like coyotes and altering community dynamics.